“I think Auburn has a lot of great things to present to a young man,” he said. “I look forward to being honest and up front about the opportunity that a young man has here at Auburn and what we think we can do in terms of their development.”

I keed, I keed, Tigers fans. But seriously, this?

It’s been awhile since Brian VanGorder recruited around the SEC, but that doesn’t mean Auburn’s new defensive coordinator is out of touch.

Indeed, says he’ll be wiser when he begins to visit recruits in their homes Friday.

That would definitely be a new leaf turned.

Not really sure any of that matters much. He’s not being paid a bunch more than Roof to be all warm and fuzzy with recruits’ mommas anyway.

Former Ohio State coach John Cooper tries on the ol’ SEC “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” hat for size and likes the way it looks:

“I see some of these teams, the Auburns. I’m told, I don’t know and I haven’t coached in that league, but I’m told that down south the Alabamas and LSUs and some of these teams that have these great players, that maybe the NCAA needs to look into their situation,” Cooper said. “Those teams have been on probation. As you know, Alabama’s certainly one of the most penalized teams in college football, as is the Southeastern Conference. We say the SEC’s the best and they are the best, but they’ve also had more NCAA violations than probably all the other leagues put together the last 10 years.”

While I’m sorry to see Orson Charles leaving, it’s pretty exciting to hear that Bacarri Rambo and Shawn Williams are staying put in Athens. Assuming Smith, Washington and Commings do the same (and Seth Emerson indicates all three are leaning towards doing so), that’s nine starters returning on a defense that finished the season ranked fifth in the nation in total defense. That ain’t too shabby.

What’s even more encouraging is this quote from Williams:

“I am going to come back,” Williams told DawgNation on Wednesday night. “I want to play with Coach Grantham again and try to be an All-American. That is my goal.”

“I want to play with Coach Grantham again” – when’s the last time you heard a Georgia defensive player talk like that?

I once bemoaned the program for having a crisis of faith, by which I meant “the coaches lack faith in the players to execute and the players lack faith in the coaches’ ability to deploy them efficiently and effectively.” Williams sounds like someone who believes again.

Obviously, they’re not near all the way back yet. And if the just-concluded season told us anything, it’s that the Georgia program still needs to learn how to finish a game. But I do wonder how we’re going to look back on the Grantham hire five years from now.

Gotta hand it to Derek Dooley. The dude can spin with the best of ’em. In response to the news that he might be losing his fifth assistant coach this offseason, he had this to say:

“That’s kind of the nature of our industry,” Dooley said during his press conference last Tuesday. “I’ve said all along that when people are wanting your coaches, despite what a lot of people think, we’re obviously doing something right.”

Something right? Shit, by that measure, SOD should have been coaching on the sideline this past Monday night.

Let’s just say the rest of the world remains somewhat less convinced. It took a two-year guaranteed contract with a $50,000 a year raise to convince Jay Graham to return to the fold as the new running backs coach. There’s no telling what it would have taken if it weren’t Urnge Momma calling him home.

“The narrative for 2012 in college sports is all about the deal, it’s all about the brand. It’s about the big-time college football programs saying ‘Show me the money,’ ” Duncan told an audience of about of 500 NCAA delegates during the keynote luncheon. “Too often, large, successful programs seem to exist in an insular world, a world of their own. Their football and basketball players, sometimes even their coaches, are given license to behave in ways that would be unacceptable elsewhere in higher education or in society at large. Nothing, I mean nothing, does more to erode public faith in intercollegiate sports than the appearance of a double standard.”

Pot, meet kettle.

Then, again, what should we expect from a guy who “praised Emmert for his leadership, his promise of reform and the energy he has brought to the NCAA’s headquarters”? Talk is cheap.